


Red Moons and Summer Nights

by not_selfconfrontation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romance, Stargazing, Summer, Teen Romance, but they're trying, klance, lance doesn't know what he's doing, lance frets and overthinks everything, let's watch these two goofballs get together, neither of them do, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_selfconfrontation/pseuds/not_selfconfrontation
Summary: “Keith’s just being nice! Gentlemanly and stuff! It shouldn’t make him feel so shy. The small things shouldn’t be so heart-warming and invigorating all at once, but it is.” Lance thinks about the summer, and things to come. Keith takes Lance on a date. What happens next is inevitable, as love always is.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 105





	Red Moons and Summer Nights

This was a real winner of a night. Lance couldn’t see any other way to put it. The living room windows were letting in a sweet breeze and from his spot on the sofa he could see the August moon, a bright circle in the window frame. The four of them were lounging around the TV surrounded by mountains of old movies and okay pizza, but it all settled around Lance like an old blanket, familiar and warm. And it wasn’t even 10 p.m yet.

“Can’t you play fair, Pidge?” Keith grumbles, throwing his controller over the shoulder as he sits back into the plush carpet. The poor thing clatters somewhere against the wall.

”Oh please,'' she scoffs. The screen flashes ‘VICTORY’ with a triumphant little horn and the wave of checkered racing flags. “You just need more driving lessons,” she says, and ducks out of the way when Keith tries to jab her. A jab that turns into a swipe that turns, unsurprisingly, into squabbling.

Lance lifts his head up to look on, before melting back into the couch. “You feel like stepping in, Hunk?” he asks. Lance is a little busy here, holding open a magazine article titled _10 Tips for Clear Skin in a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland_ across his face with, what he will admit, a bit of morbid curiosity. Hunk is laid up on the other couch, dangling a slice of pizza into his mouth.

“I think I’ll sit this one out,” Hunk mumbles past bits of pepperoni and cheese.

The squabbling snowballs into a ruckus, so loud that it reaches the next room. 

“Why don’t you learn to play fair?”

“Why don’t _you_ learn to stop whining?”

When Rachel peeks her head out the kitchen to nail them with her patented sibling glare, SAT guide book wielded menacingly in hand, Lance knows what to do. The magazine joins the controller. He rolls off the couch and rummages through the stack of DVDs, searching, searching, until--

“Oh god. Lance. No.”

“I swear, we’ve watched this more times than I can stomach.”

“Well, kiddos,” Lance says, already inserting the DVD for his favorite trashy rom-com of the 80s into the player, “If you can’t learn to play nice, you won’t play at all.”

They all settle down as the title screen rolls in with romantic ocean waves and the setting sun. By the time the dashing hero appears, Hunk and Pidge are clutching their stomachs with laughter, stuck between roasting the corny dialogue or Lance, for being so enraptured by said corny dialogue.

“Both?” Pidge muses. “Yeah, I think we can do both.”

Lance doesn’t mind though. He knows it's corny. But he also knows that by the climax, Hunk will be on the edge of his seat, unable to look away like the onlooker of a terrible accident. Pidge will lose interest in the mockery when Hunk does. She’ll tap away at her phone, chiming in with the occasional half-hearted jibe. And Keith. Lovely Keith, bless his heart, will appear with a handful of tissues and a hug when the couple has their final triumphant kiss, where Lance can’t help tearing up. It gets him every single goddamn time. So, yeah, it doesn’t bother him. There’s not much in the world that he knows for sure but he knows this like the beat of his heart. The beautiful clockwork that comes from their years of friendship, all the way from middle school to these last moments before their senior year.

Before they can get to the end, Lance’s mom walks down the stairs with a stern face and the loving suggestion that they relocate to Lance’s room so the rest of the house can sleep, sweetheart. His room is at the end of the hallway with the thickest walls in the house, so as soon as the door clicks shut, the ruckus comes back at full force. 

Lance sweeps the piles of books and packets off his bed so that they can all flop on top of it, squirming and squawking and pushing at limbs to make room for each other. 

“Lance, your ass is too fat,” Pidge gripes.

“Is that supposed to offend me?” 

A stray page flutters to rest on Lance’s forehead and he catches half a phrase, _-tters of recommendation_ , before he swipes it away. There's no room for that sort of thing right now. He wants to stay here. Where its just the four of them, breathing slowly in the evening comfort of Lance’s room, his ceiling fan whirling in its hypnotic track. What else could he need but this, he thinks. The radio plays a sweet little tune of strumming guitar, drifting with the cricket song and rustling leaves. 

Partial moonlight gleams bright in Lance’s periphery and it sparks something in his memory. “Wasn’t there something going on tonight?” Lance asks. It tugs at the base of his skull, waiting at the tip of his tongue. Something important.

“Nope.” Keith says, too quickly and too casually but then someone’s phone chirps before he can question it. Then another. Lance’s phone joins the fray and he digs it out of his pocket to check.

It takes a second before Romelle’s new post comes into focus. She’s grinning ear to ear, holding up an Altea University t-shirt with the caption: _I am pleased to announce that I’ve been accepted to Altea University! Early admission + full scholarship!!! I can’t believe we’re finally here!_

“Oh wow.”

“Good for her!”

“I didn’t even know you could get in that early.” Lance mumbles. He shoots Romelle a quick congratulatory text and shoves his phone away, looking to the window. He doesn’t want to dwell on college right now. The wind picks up and shifts the tree branches, letting the full moonlight stream through for just a second before everything settles again. He’s not sure if there’s anything else like this, just the view of the rest of the world framed by his bedroom window. 

“Hey,” Keith whispers, just to the left of him. His voice is enough to tune Lance back in. Keith is propped on his elbows by the headboard, looking down at him with that grin, the one Lance seems to think about more and more lately. 

Lance smiles back. “Hi”

“What’s got you staring out the window?” By the foot of the bed, Pidge and Hunk chatter about their applications and which of their classmates will be going where.

“Just, y’know,” Lance shrugs. “Life stuff.”

“Gross.” 

That startles a laugh outta him and Keith’s grin gets even wider. That mane of his curls handsomely at the edges and it’s honestly hypnotic how they shift against the column of his throat when Keith leans closer, whispering “Are you ready for tonight?” 

The proximity rattles his focus. He tries to fight against the embarrassing heat rising to his face.

“I could be, if I actually knew what we were doing,” he whispers back. 

Keith chuckles, low and smooth. “Where’s that famous Lance McClain patience?”

Lance props himself up on his elbows and leans closer. “Same place as your gaming skills,” he whispers and when Keith shoves back down to the bed for it, he _giggles_. Like he’s the ditzy heroine from the movie. He’s not sure when this started, this lightness in his chest, this warmth that spreads outward when Keith is near him or smiles at him or just looks at him, for god's sake. But he knows he doesn’t want it to stop, wants to see how far it’ll take him.

The lively pop tunes of the radio drift away as the announcer’s voice returns. _Welcome back to 104.5, fam! It’s 10 PM and you know what that means. It’s time for the Country Hour!_

Pidge pulls off her shoe, and before Lance can reach over to stop her, tosses it at the radio across the room. Thankfully, her aim is better online. It bounces off the dresser and into the trash can next to it. The radio plays on. Quick melodic guitar strings and a deep lonesome voice fill their ears.

“Ha!”

“Lance, you can’t honestly tell me you want to listen to this.”

“That doesn’t mean bust my radio!”

“I got it,” Hunk sighs, lifting onto his elbows.

“Everybody say ‘thank you, Hunk,” Lance cheers. Hunk mutters about how he loves them, but honestly, what would they even do without him? He starts to roll off the bed, presumably intending to land on his feet. Somehow he miscalculates and before any of them can stop it, Hunk is rolling right off the edge. He brings Pidge down with him. They both wallop onto the ground with a hard _whoomp_ into a pile of clothes and loose papers.

A pause. And then the room roars with laughter.

“I look like some kind of freight-hopping hobo,” Pidge chokes out, covered in mismatching pieces of Lance’s stray clothing. Hunk mirrors her, sporting a pair of heart shaped sunglasses and a cowboy hat that Lance refuses to justify owning. They struggle not to slip back into the ground as they strive for balance but misstep, falling back against the other as they gasp for breath between bouts of laughter. 

Lance stands up and whips out his phone, desperate to capture this when another round of laughter sparks up. It’s hard to pay attention though when Keith is laughing like that, full-bodied from the gut. It lifts the tension out of his shoulders, brightens the lines of his body, scrunches his nose in the cutest way. His smile is a familiar comfort that he’s never tired of, not once since the day Keith moved here. 

Lance likes to think of the evening they met as a touch of fate. Keith likes to remind him that it’s more like breaking and entering but they can agree to disagree. In the last summer of middle school, Lance had kept a long list of stargazing spots to check out, spread out all over town. It simply couldn’t have been simple coincidence that Lance would be scoping out the old treehouse at the abandoned home down the block on the same day Keith’s family would be moving in. Like, what were the chances? Nor could the fact that the first person to spot Lance up there was Keith, a foot shorter but with that same wild curls. No, it must have been fate. 

Keith, the boring little grump he used to be, had politely refused Lance’s invitation to come up and join him and instead offered his own invitation for Lance to get the hell down before he got his parents to call the cops. An impasse. Unfortunately, gravity had decided for them. When Lance woke up, cushioned by a pile of golden leaves, it was to those same dark eyes blinking down at him.

“You coulda died, idiot! Aren’t there some other places else you can go look at the stars?”

“My name isn’t “idiot”, it’s Lance!” He bit back, spitting out a stray leaf. “And, yeah, as a matter of fact, there are!”

Keith had stared, unbelieving. “So you didn’t need to break into my house?”

“It’s not your house, just the backyard!” Lance had mumbled, embarrassed but even then, he had refused to admit there wasn’t a difference.

“You wanna show me?”

“Show you what?”

“These other places you go lookin’ at the stars. I don’t really feel like unpacking for now.” Keith had held out his hand, already so calloused at age thirteen, and when Lance grabbed on, he smiled. A show of teeth that reached his eyes, lit up with the evening glare. The shy warmth of it wasn’t something he’d ever forget. They’d been stuck together ever since. 

It’s the same warmth that shivers up his spine when Keith turns that smile on him now, while Pidge and Hunk tumble their way around the room like square dancing muppets.

Lance swallows down a little sigh, doesn’t wanna keep swooning or giggling like he’s lovesick. Which he might be. Probably. That doesn’t mean he needs to keep staring at Keith like he’s got brain damage. He should say something, right? Or maybe just a smile? While he hems and haws over it, he misses Pidge and Hunk circling back towards the bed with menacing smiles.

“Jesus,” Keith groans when the two of them flop back onto the bed in a dog-pile, squishing him to the mattress. The music has faded into something softer and slower.

“Square dancing is rough work,” Pidge says between heaving breaths.

“Maybe you’re just not cowboy-material,” Hunk replies and laughs when Pidge gives him a pillow to the face. 

The three of them push and pull to make room for each other. Watching the lovable dorks that he gets to call his friends has something swelling in his chest. Hunk calls out, “Lance, get in here buddy,” as they squirm to make a space for him. There’s nothing else like this in the world, Lance thinks, cushioned in this moment by the arms of his friends and the breeze wafting through. 

Then Pidge’s phone chirps and she says, “Sorry guys. My parents want me home soon.” 

“I should start getting home too. Don’t think I can handle another one of my mom’s night time danger lectures.” 

Just like that, the moment fades. The breeze pitters out into nothing. They all groan and grumble as they get themselves off the bed. 

His gaze drifts from Pidge, digging her shoe out of the trash to Keith, who’s already looking at him. He doesn’t jump at being caught. Just another smile that has Lance looking away, biting his lip to suppress the nervous giggle that wants to bubble out.

Eventually they all get themselves together and drag themselves to the driveway.

\--------------------------

“So what’s this?” Pidge asks, leaning into the bed of Keith’s truck so much that it creaks on its axles. The movement shakes the basket-sized bundle of purple blankets, tied up with a topknot around some assortment of items that bulk out in clunky ways.

“It’s a secret is what it is,” Keith emphasizes as he digs for his keys in his backpack, casting a fond look in Lance’s direction. Lance flips away with an innocent whistle, totally not hoping to catch a sneak peek. The bundle is definitely involved with whatever it is Keith is planning and he’s not above spying to figure it out.

They all pile into the cab and take off down the street. Lance rolls down the window. The night sifts through his hair as they drift by cozy suburban homes, hazy in the glow of streetlights. The moon is stark in the side mirror. It consumes more of the sky than usual, plump and vibrant.

They chat and laugh idly as Keith cruises towards Pidge’s block. The cloud of conversation and the echo of passing cars settles comfortably on Lance’s skin, like a blanket that protects from the coming fall. The passing tree branches still weigh heavy from fruit but he can already imagine hints of red and orange on their leaves. 

Pidge gets dropped off first, waving to them as her brother welcomes her back in. Hunk is next. He squeezes their shoulders and disappears into the warm light of his doorway. Goodbyes always drag over him, but he’ll see em’ both soon enough anyways.

A hand runs soothingly over his shoulder. “The night’s not over yet,” Keith says, like he’s thinking the same thing. His smile is, somehow, even more handsome here, a bright ray slicing through the dim evening. Lance grins back, unable to help himself. 

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

Keith turns back to the driver’s seat and heads down the road, smirking but noticeably silent.

“Oh, c’mon,” Lance groans. He thumps his head back against the seat. “You really can’t tell me what we’re doing tonight?” 

“Spoilers,” Keith says. Lance tries to fight the chuckle and maintain his pout, but his lips tug helplessly upwards. 

“Just one itty bitty tiny sneak peek couldn’t hurt.” He turns those baby blues on Keith, twinkling like jewels with the shifting moonlight. No avail. 

The truck slows down and pulls into a gravelly parking lot. Lance looks up and down the storefronts of the strip mall. The nail salon and some shoddy pizza places are all closed. The only light is the neon of the 24/7 convenience store in front of them.

“I guess dilapidated strip plaza is where you go for a night on the town? Cool, cool,” he teases.

“We’re just stopping for snacks,” Keith says, hopping out and running to the other side. Before Lance can blink, Keith is opening his door for him. 

“After you,” he says, low voice rumbling. 

Cool wind rushes into the truck cab but it does nothing for the heat that flushes sweetly under Lance’s skin. He tries not to let it show as he steps out of the truck. Keith’s just being nice! Gentlemanly and stuff! It shouldn’t make him feel so shy. The small things shouldn’t be so heart-warming and invigorating all at once, but it is. 

“Thanks,” Lance mumbles, heart picking up a little. Keith is still looking straight at him, like it’s just the two of them and nothing else in the world. It’s true, in a way. 

“No problem,” he replies, closing the door behind him.

Some sleep-deprived girl at the cash register mumbles a quick greeting as they walk past. They meander up and down the aisle, filling a hand basket with an insanely unhealthy stockpile of chips, gummies and cavity-torturing drinks. They skip past the moldy rotisserie of sickly looking hotdogs and mozzarella sticks. 

Lance stops every so often, caught in indecision. Barbecue or sour cream? He flicks back and forth between the bags for eons. Then a calloused hand reaches from behind and takes the barbecue. Drops it into the basket. 

Keith. Right there. Smiling down from the infuriating two inches that he has on Lance, heart-stoppingly close.

“Wh-what if I don’t like barbecue?” Lance challenges. He doesn’t mean it. The stupid little knot of tension has already pulled apart and he’s a little embarrassed to have been so hesitant over some bags of chips.

Keith shrugs. “You always get barbecue.”

“Oh,” Lance swallows. “That's--” True. It rings true somehow, but he never noticed. But Keith had. Keith had seen this little thing about him and took notice and remembered it. Like this stupid little detail about Lance had been important to him.

“ _Ha_ -” Lance blurts out, skin pebbling all over from the thought. “Well, yeah, let’s just, um--” he flounders before his voice just peters out. Keith just keeps drinking him in with those dark eyes, like he’s looking at something better than just plain ol’ Lance and that just makes the heat burn brighter, sweeter. 

Okay, he definitely knows what this is now. The fizz that zips through him whenever Keith so much as brushes up against his shoulder. How the banter ping pongs back and forth so easily as they continue through the aisles. He’s felt his heart do this dance before, dozens of people he’s handed over his heart to with declarations and the like. But this was something else. This was Keith. His heart hasn’t beat like this for anyone else, he’s never dreamed at night about someone else like this. He’s lost hours to daydream of what it might be like to--this could actually be--

“Want some slushies before we head out?” Keith says. All Lance can do is nod dumbly, like a friggin’ bobblehead, and follow along. 

A group of kids are stood in front of the machine, and it doesn’t seem like they’ll land on a decision any time soon. The two of them leaned against the countertop next to the machine and wait. And wait. And wait, Christ, he’ll have graduated by the time these guys pick a flavor. He looks over to the register. An ancient radio is flickering in and out of frequency as a show host speaks.

_Tonight’s the night of the--krrst--folks! Head outside so you don’t---krrst--in a lifetime event!_

From the way the cashier girl leafs idly through her magazine, it doesn’t seem like there’s a chance of getting the radio fixed anytime soon. To his left, Keith has moved a few feet away, flipping through a magazine of his own. He can just make out the cover, a group of college students with commercial smiles as they form a circle on a freshly-manicured lawn. 

Lance peeks over Keith’s shoulder. “Whatcha’ got there, mullet?”

Keith shrugs his other shoulder. “I was thinking about applying here.” He flips to the next page as he gives a heavy sigh. “It’s far.”

Far doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s practically on the other side of the friggin’ country, fortified by thick Midwestern snow. 

“Well, do you think you’ll like the place?”

“I think so,” Keith says. “Won't know until I visit, right?”

“Yeah, man.” Lance scrambles his brain for a change in the subject. He flicks to the next page, now open to a handsome guy in a college sweater, long hair swept back in the wind. 

“He’s kinda cute,” Lance says. 

“Yeah?” Keith asks, taking on a playful tone. Keith turns to face him fully and Lance gets so caught up in the way the fluorescent light slides down his skin like oil that he almost misses it when Keith says, smirking down at him, “Do you like guys with long hair?” As if that wasn’t enough, the ventilation decides that this is the perfect moment to pick up, fluttering Keith’s hair around his neck in waves.

The way Keith’s looking at him, Lance might call it flirting if he knew any better. And maybe he doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t be choking on his spit like an idiot trying to respond, wouldn’t be just staring at Keith and his ridiculous hair, more handsome than the guy in the magazine could hope to be. 

Maybe he doesn’t know anything at all.

Which is probably why the only course of action he can think to take is to blurt, “ _Shut it_ ,” snatch some chips from the basket, and launch it into Keith’s face. 

It’s a wonder he’s made this far through the educational system.

Keith catches the bag without looking away. He doesn’t miss a beat. Lance shrieks as the bag is thrown back at him, their laughter weaving together. The other kids finish up with their drinks, but they hardly notice. Soon the entire basket becomes a stockpile of ammo, the crinkling of plastic wrapping bursting around them.

Keith backs him into a corner before he can do anything about it. In an instant, he’s caught against the countertop, still grasping the last bag of chips like a lifeline. Keith, above him, leaning into him. Arms bracketing Lance on each side. This close, the fluorescent stars in eyes are too bright to look at, too lovely to avert his gaze.

“Do you give up?” Keith asks through the rumbles of warm, honeyed laughter. The warmth spreads over his bones and pools in his stomach. He wishes he could freeze this moment. There’s nothing that could ruin this, the universe could strike him down to ashes right here and now and still he’d be happy because, well, just _look_ at him. 

Just a show of those brilliant teeth gets at him. It’s like he ran a mile around their small town, like he could jump right out of his skin and do a jig. He could do anything at all! That smile roils through his veins like sweet acid, eating away his anxieties about the future, their future. It leaves nothing but clean breath in his lungs, warm and tingling across his limbs, through the tips of his fingers, like the two of them could do anything, he feels so, so--

_Pop!_

Greasy chip particles ricochet through the bag. The flakes shoot up above them and fall down like sharp golden flurries. It’s in their hair, their clothes. Now a different heat consumes him as he imagines how he must look, stunned and clenching the crumpled corpse of a chip bag in his fist. Keith stares back at him wide-eyed. His lips twitch once, twice and Lance’s mouth mimics him. Their eyes fall with the descent of a final crumb, fluttering through the air to the tip of Lance’s nose and that’s when they burst into laughter.

\--------------------------

The cashier informs them they need to clean up the mess around them, which is totally understandable, and pay for the opened bag and, yeah, Lance was expecting that too. Wasn’t expecting Keith to lay his palm to the small of his back as he insists on paying for all their snacks. Like they were on a date. Just the word, _date_ , buzzes around in his skull, energized by the heat of Keith’s hand because, honestly, a date would be just, well...

Yup.

Anyways!

“After you, Scooby-doo,” Lance quips, rushing to hold the door for a very amused Keith. 

“I guess you do have some manners,” Keith says, walking through. They make it back to the truck through the inky darkness, armed to the teeth with bags of snacks and sugary drinks their mothers wouldn’t approve of.

Lance waits by the passenger door as Keith struggles with his keyring. He considers poking fun at him for having so many keys in the first place, but lets it go. He’s content to just stare into the sky above, stretching into the distance. It’s crazy how good everything is right now, right? Him, here, under pinprick stars. With this handsome dork that looks at Lance like he’s stardust or something. In the sweet little town where he spent hours stargazing on the roof of Coran’s diner, walking the streets with Hunk and Pidge and Keith too, eventually. The streets that they can cruise now, in the old pickup Keith’s dad gave him. Everything was just so, so good like this.

There’s a sudden flood of purples and oranges in the corner of his eye and before he can think, he looks across the street to the west, expecting the sunset. It’s the colorful neon of a liquor store across the street, turning on for what must be the late night shift. The light spills into the otherwise abandoned street, paint across a dark canvas. 

Don’t know why he was expecting the sunset. It’s already dark. They had all been inside, still laughing, when the sun went down. It feels, strangely enough, like a shock. Like the universe just flicked him on the forehead. It’s too late to wonder about the colors of today’s sunset. The sadness of that is still, like, ridiculous, but it comes at him like a curveball. 

But that’s the great thing about sunsets, there’s one of ‘em every day, right? It’s a nice thought. But it doesn’t make him feel better.

Keith finally gets the key out and the doors unlocked.

“You coming?”

Lance says yeah and slides his way into the passenger seat, settling the bags by his feet. As they cruise through the city, he leans back and gazes at the dim streetlights and he can already see them blurring into new places, new shops and houses that he might be seeing, that all of them might be seeing, in only a year’s time. What’s the summer gonna look like when they come back from college? The anxiety comes with a weight, pushing him down into his seat. 

He turns to Keith, focuses on the smooth line of his jaw and the way his hair curls to kiss his forehead. He doesn’t have to think about things like that, for now.

\--------------------------

The old City Center shopping mall is pretty much a verifiable ghost town. Closed and abandoned. Where a younger version of himself used to run up the escalators, outpacing his siblings, is now the spot where a few people will go to smoke weed in the empty department stores. Until the developers come, it’s free territory as far as the rest of the town is concerned. So Lance isn’t too concerned about getting caught after hours when Keith drives them up to the open roof of the parking deck 

Lance throws Keith a look, amused but still willing to play along as Keith immediately hops out and opens the door for him. 

“Is the surprise how gentlemanly you’re being tonight?” Lance says as Keith shuts the door behind him. The sky is an open bowl flipped over them, perforated with stars.

“No, that’s just a bonus,” Keith teases, “now don’t look.”

Keith leaves him by the side of the door and heads over to the bed of the truck, presumably to mess around with the mystery bundle he’s been so strict about. Lance makes a 180 pivot, facing the ledge, and covers his hands with his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he hears Keith call out.

“It’s a surprise, isn’t it?” Lance calls back. 

“You have eyelids for a reason.”

“I think we both know I can’t be trusted, Keith”

It can’t be more than a couple minutes that pass. He hears the crinkle of plastic, some sort of whooshing sound, a couple swear words. 

Then hands, tingling where they lay on his shoulders, guiding him around. Lance keeps his hands on his eyes, resists the urge to feel about in front of him like a moron. 

They stop. Keith’s hands leave his shoulders, and before he has the chance to mourn the loss of warmth, they come back, laying over Lance’s own hands on his eyes.

“Okay, check it out.”

Their hands lift away together. Lance’s jaw swings open.

The first thing that hits him is the purple. Deep, royal, plush blankets transform the truck bed into a cloud, and if Lance is being honest, that would be romantic enough on its own without the tunes strumming softly from Keith’s phone on the sheets. Their snacks are laid out carefully by the side. And the silver telescope displayed in the center of it all, glinting in the moonlight. It’s a new model he’s seen when skimming through his stargazing guides, and hurt his wallet just looking at it.

The next thing hits him like an asteroid.

“Oh my god,” Lance whispers. “The supermoon eclipse”

“Yup,” Keith says, cheesy grin on his face.

“I _forgot_ ,” Lance chokes out, struggling to connect the wires of his brain-to-mouth connection. The once in a decade celestial event that he had marked lovingly in red ink on his calendar over three months ago. He pictures that calendar now, covered with post-it note reminders and assignments and to-do lists.

He stumbles blindly along as Keith tugs him gently towards the truck. 

“I thought it might’ve slipped your mind.” he says. Which, well, yeah. His mind is certainly struggling now to comprehend the situation, trying to keep up as they sink into the blankets comfortably. Keith fiddles with the telescope, sitting just close enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck,

None of it really sinks in until Keith looks at him.

_Is this a date?_ Lance thinks and that alone is enough to spark his system back online because, fuck. This can _not_ be a date. He’s woefully under-prepared, in an old t-shirt and unflattering jeans, for a night under the stars with him, Keith, who’s looking at Lance with those space-born eyes, the ones that seem to say “yes this is real, yes you are worth this trouble.” He can’t believe it. He’s spellbound by the sheer audacity, the absolute _romance_ of it all.

According to the guide on Keith’s phone, they’ve got a little while before the eclipse sets in. That’s fine. He’s happy to lose himself in the way Keith presses against him. Shoulder to shoulder. Ankles hooked under the blanket folds. Lost in their back and forth. He likes how Keith teases him for drinking kombucha, but lets him rave about it anyways. They pass the minutes, hours, an eternity, just laughing, sharing warmth when the summer night breeze passes through. Giggling at nothing, at each other. Lance scrolls through the pictures from earlier, and chuckle at the dumb poses Hunk and Pidge take. He’s happy like this and he knows Keith is too, the way his smile never leaves his face, and isn’t that just amazing? 

Keith looks away to rummage for more snacks. Lance keeps flicking through his roll, stopping upon a video from earlier. The first couple seconds are of Hunk and Pidge, a little shaky. He doesn’t remember this. Then the frame shifts and he realize why. A smiling, laughing Keith is turned away from the camera, looking at the off-screen spectacle of their friends. Even through the filter of a screen, Keith is arresting. 

He looks back over to him, the real Keith. 

Sometimes, Lance is afraid of the maybe-might be that’s been swelling up between them. A little shapeless, but there, right? He can’t be imagining the looks they share when their friends are distracted, the way they just _know_ each other. It sends a thrill through his heart just to think about it. It’s scary, too, to think of how much he wants this.

And what if he’s wrong, what if he’s too young, like his sisters and all the advice boards say, for their relationship to survive the romance he dreams about. The distance that college might shove between them. Too much, too fast. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that. Sometimes, when he’s really freakin’ lost it, he thinks about houses, a home, cooking together, how their hands might fit together differently if they dated or how they might not fit at all. He doesn’t know. He stares at Keith, at those dumb little crumbles in his hair and wishes he could say _I miss you already_. 

Helicopter lights wink in red and yellow, sliding across the foreseeable sky before disappearing. 

He’s still staring when Keith turns back, catches him in the act before he can look away.

“What?” Keith says, brows furrowed. “Something there?” 

“I--what?” 

“Is there something in my hair or what?” Lance stutters some more and that’s apparently taken as a yes. Keith runs his hands through the thick of it a couple times, looks back. “Is it gone?”

He’s just sitting there with hair that frames his face perfectly, with eyes like liquid mirrors, the way they take on the moonlight and transform it into something else. Something starbright and wonderful.

Lance doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say, “You’re so gorgeous I could scream.” He doesn’t say “I miss you already.” Instead, because he’s such a friggin’ genius, he blurts out, “Is this a date?”

He’s not sure what he’s expecting. An explosion, maybe? For the world to tilt sideways? Definitely not the sly grin Keith shoots him. Not the way he suddenly rummages through the snacks without a care in the world.

“Oh my god. Keith!”

“Hmm,” he replies, mockingly innocent.

“This is totally a date.” Lance shouts a little, echoing across the parking deck. Who can blame him? He shoves at Keith’s shoulders, not letting himself get carried away with the feel of muscle or the thrill down his spine when Keith finally lets out a laugh, honeyed and low.

“So what if it is?” Keith whispers, leaning close. 

He rides on a sudden burst of boldness. “So when’s the second one?” It comes out giddy, as thrilled as he is. He can’t help it.

Keith’s smile is enough to distract him, just a moment, from the moon. 

\----

When Lance blinks back into the present, he has to wade through all the fog of sleep. Everything is warm, pleasant. A hand rubs a soothing path up and down his back. Keith is shifting him from his resting place, which is apparently in the crook of Keith’s neck. It smells like sandalwood and bourbon. If he weren’t so groggy, he might have stopped himself from breathing in deeply and quite obviously. Doesn’t even have the chance to feel embarrassed about it before Keith shifts him away, just a little.

“Hey, hey. It’s starting.” 

The moon bleeds red, slowly at first, then the edges curve forward until it’s reached the half point. 

They marvel at it, switching off between the telescope to marvel at the details, the way the lunar seas turn burgundy, how the clouds around it turn half-pink, half-blue like midnight cotton candy. The gleam of it sparkles in Keith’s eyes, dark and pearlescent all at once. It was just them up here. On top of this desk, the sky stretched around them, kissed the edges of everything there was to see. Just them at the floor of the universe. Him, Keith, and this alien moon.

He wants, no, _needs_ this moment to go on for as long as the universe will let it.

Half an hour later, the red has reached its zenith. As he shifts, the shape of his phone presses into his leg and he immediately reaches for it, ready to load his phone with about a billion pictures. _Click, click, click_ , then a notification. 

Romelle, texting him back: _thanks lance! can’t believe Altea let me in!_

It’s like a bubble bursting, flooding in with everything else.

And it's hard, watching it burst right in front of him. It doesn’t seem like anyone else sees it, the way his friends go on about next year. Time slipping like liquid soap through his fingers.

Clouds pass over the rosy moon and it feels like a window is closing. He won’t see something like this again for who knows how long. He misses it already. The clouds keep passing by anyways, like the lights of the town, like his friends on their way to different places, like Keith all the way on the other side of the country surrounded by Midwestern snow. 

Whatever he’s feeling must drip over Lance’s face, the droop of his mouth, the half lid of his eyes, because there’s a hand at his chin. The world shifts as his face is tilted towards Keith. His eyes are flickering, searching.

“What’s wrong.” It’s a statement. Keith just knows. 

He can’t lie, not about this, not looking into those eyes. Would never even want to.

“I’m just,” he pushes through, “not ready for this to be over.” His heart threatens to escape through his throat, expose itself to the boy in front of him. 

Keith’s palm smooths a path down his arm, knits his fingers with Lance’s and he’s not sure he can take that. Lance looks down at what he’s wearing, old tshirt and ugly jeans but Keith still looks at him like there’s nothing else, like he couldn’t give a fuck about the goddamn celestial miracle above them.

“I just keep thinking about next year, and Hunk and Pidge and you and I just-- I mean, I don’t even know if I’ll be--” He takes his time on the next breath, then another. Keith lets him get through it, and that feels like a miracle too.

Keith’s eyes, open and watchful, take on the red light and transform it into something beautiful. Unbelievable. The dark open sky behind him feels like permission.

“I miss you already.”

Keith pulses their hands. “I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere”

Lance lets out a breath, a little frustration coming out with it. “Keith, how can you know--”

“I know what I want.”

“Keith-” he tries. Keith doesn’t let him, pulses their hands again. Doesn’t look away.

“Remember when you broke into my backyard,” he asks. Lance splutters, scrambled by the topic change.

“‘Breaking in’ is one interpretation of that, but, um, yeah.”

“Everything else had been so frustrating that day. And then you just dropped in. I thought you were so crazy for it,” Keith’s smile spreads like light at the memory. “But that’s what I liked about you. And I had no idea what would happen but I just followed you anyway. A part of me knew then and I know now. It doesn’t matter where. It’s always gonna be you and me.”

Lance stares, like he’s been struck. Keith wraps his hands around Lance’s waist and tugs him in. He falls easily. The crook of his neck is a warm comfort.

“We’re still here. You and me, right?” 

Keith’s eyes are starlight transformed. “You and me,” Lance whispers.

\--------------------------

“Y’know, I used to stare up at the moon, like, all the time at night,” Lance says. They’re laid back in the plush of the blankets, looking up. Empty food wrappers are scattered all around them. Keith’s chest is a solid comfort. He can’t quite tell their heartbeats apart. 

“My mom told me it’s the loneliest thing in the sky. It was too bright for us to see anything else near it. And that, just felt nice to stare at it, y’know, when I was feeling like a little sad sack.”

“How do you feel now,” Keith whispers. His words rustle Lance’s hair, shiver down the back of his neck and through his body. The sky was bursting around them in reds and blues. 

Slowly or all at once, Lance tangles their fingers together.

“I’m feeling pretty goddamn great.” It’s almost heartbreaking, how amazing he feels right now. Like Keith could drive this car off the roof right now and they’d both come back stronger for it.

“That’s great,” Keith says, smiling.

“Get your own adjective.”

He could practically hear Keith’s eye roll.

“Okay Lance, that’s _really_ great”

“I’ll get you one of those adlib books so you can learn what an adjective is.”

“Maybe a dictionary?”

Lance can’t help but smile wider. “Sure Keith. Whatever you want.”

Keith leans up on one elbow, pins Lance down with a look, turns his blood to honey. “Whatever I want huh?”

“Yeah,” Lance says, swallowing, trying to press his heart back down his throat. Keith’s eyes follow the movement and it feels like a dream.

Keith looks down at him, hanging over him like the stars, the sun, the moon. He’s celestial. A better view than anything he’s seen tonight. The lines of his body guide from one to another; the plane of his jaw, the slope of his neck, the ridge of his biceps. It sends his heart into a frenzy against his ribs. He sees the question before Keith even asks and it floors him how much he wants it, this, Keith. Their breath, puffing together. The blur of hands against skin. He wants--

“If I did something crazy, like, kiss-you crazy, would you let me?” Lance’s heart rockets past his throat, straight to his head, screaming _YES, YES, YES_.

“I don’t think that’s crazy,” he whispers. “Yeah,” Keith murmurs. “Me neither.”

“So...is that--mmph.”

Soft. Keith’s hand, blazing in the summer heat over his waist. They roll onto their sides to meet the other and then it’s just, softness. Keith leaning, over him, into him. In an instant, the warm press of lips is gone and all he can see is him, Keith, eyes boring into him. For a second, they just breath, and it shoots shivers through every part of him. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds but he’s never been so dizzy in his goddamn life. Every little movement is setting him off. The curl of Keith’s hair. Red-gold light, dripping through clouds. In the gap, Lance can barely get out, “Oh go-” before the moment’s over, and they’re diving back in. 

Fuck. This is really, actually happening. He actually gets to feel those curls, silky between his fingers. Hands, gliding around his waist, up his back and down again. The sweetness of their drinks hits him, inebriates him. He chases it, meeting Keith kiss for kiss in earnest. Keith licks into his mouth and it sets them both off. One of them groans, he can’t figure out who. When he thinks about it, he knows they were gonna end up exactly like this. Eventual, like the sunset. Every piece of them had been built from the same star, the same particles of cosmic dust. How else could he explain the warmth that would bleed from Keith’s palm to his? The way Keith’s laughter was a call from across the room. How light and color would pulse, vibrant and alive, every time Keith came within arms’ reach of him. Nothing else in the universe could explain this.

They’re rolling and shifting until Keith is sitting against the cab with Lance on top of him. Demanding lips, latched onto his neck, melting Lance to the spot. Sometime later, he feels Keith mumble, “Can I--” 

“Yeah, yes,” he gasps. He wants whatever it is. And so they keep going, and going, and going, long after the moon has faded through gold to lily white.

\---------------------

They keep kissing until they can’t anymore, sleep lulling them both down until the morning breaks over with orange and gold. It might be around 6, maybe 7 in the morning? He reaches to get up before deciding better of it, settles back against a sleeping Keith. There’s no rush to leave. The rest of the day will come anyways. Keith’s lips are the slightest bit open, soft to his touch, breath even.

He tries to fight through the miasma of sleep but with Keith here, hand in his, Lance honestly can’t remember what he’d been so worried about.

\---------------------

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, I really appreciate it! follow me on tumblr if you want: not-selfconfrontation


End file.
